Departure Lounge

Departure Lounge is an Edinburgh-based club-night, and in many ways is the foundation and inspiration for Astrojazz. It launched in June 2003 at the as-yet-unused Caves venue deep in Edinburgh’s Old Town. The philosophy of the clubnight was simple, to put on great live bands alongside great guest DJs – all operating somewhere along the spectrum of “black music”. So over the years we have represented a staggering array of musical genres – soul, funk, jazz, afrobeat, hip-hop, reggae, dub, house, drum’n’bass, salsa, broken beat, Balkan-gypsy…the list goes on and on. For one clubnight to showcase such an ambitious range of music, particularly live music, was, and still is, a rare thing.

The formula was a near-instant success, with the night selling out regularly within a year. This allowed us to be bold with the acts we programmed, and in time we brought a healthy cross-section of world-class talent to Scotland, often for the first time: Azymuth, Gilles Peterson, Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, Bonobo, Bass Clef, Jazztronik, Nostalgia 77, Souljazz Orchestra, Baghdaddies, Patrick Forge, Spiritual, Benji B, Dalindeo, DJ Kentaro, Floating Points, Zero dB, Mark de-Clive Lowe…just a fraction of the acts who have played. We also have great fun holding New Year’s Eve events, which in the past have attracted up to 1000 people to The Caves.

After 8 and a half years of running Departure Lounge, the team behind the night took the decision to stop doing regular nights, as the feeling was that the club had “run its course”. Hogmanay 2011/12 is to be the last regular Departure Lounge night. In May 2011, Departure Lounge hosted the dance tent at the legendary Knockengorroch Festival, and looked after a capacity tent where Ninja Tune don DJ Food and top Bristol party band Dr Meaker both played sets. Departure Lounge will look to do more of this kind of thing in the future. We are also launching an off-shoot event, called Samedia. For more information on this go here.